nowhere fairytales
by lydiamaartin
Summary: Three different starts to the story of Emma Swan and Captain Hook, or three ways they could have met, but didn't. - EmmaKillian


**disclaimer:** i don't own once upon a time.

**dedication:** happy birthday chi (skwirl)!

**notes:** very very au (obviously), expect nothing. also probably none of these will be continued so don't get your hopes up but hey who knows.

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**i. portland  
**_(in which killian jones escapes neverland after learning of pan's plans for henry to warn his soon-to-be-mother as an act of defiance against the demon boy king and not all goes as planned)_

She is eighteen with horizon dreams in her eyes, too young to appreciate youth and too old to love growing up, and Oregon is dreadfully lonely as the night dawns in golds and blues and the people vanish from the streets. She is good at getting lost in unfamiliar cities with faces she's seen a million times before on a million different people, but tonight the skies are a deeper shade of black, so she finds a place to call home for eight hours.

It's not much, just a car in a shade of grey she's never liked, hotwired and stolen and driven miles away from the parking lot she'd found it in to the beach, where everything is quiet breaths and moonshine. She curls up in the backseat around the blanket she has always had, one of her only real posessions and the one thing she truly has to her name, and closes her eyes to welcome another night of dreams that sink into her bones.

She'd dreamed of castles, once upon a time, but these days she sees only dragons. A side-effect of growing up, she'd been told by teachers and school counselors with smiles that never reached their eyes. _There are no fairy godmothers in this world_, so she curls her fingers into the blanket that her parents had abandoned her with and closes her eyes against the stars.

Oregon is peaceful, until the waves crash onto the shore.

She opens her eyes to seawater and chaos and, impossibly, the sight of a tremendously large ship washed up on the beach. Her hands drop the blanket, grab the gun she'd stolen four towns ago, and jump to the door handles, ready to run. You don't get as far north as she has without learning how to survive. If all the stories she used to read are true, this is a _pirate_ _ship_, and where there are pirates, there is _violence_.

Emma has won a war against the world for eighteen years, and tonight isn't about to be her first loss. She steels herself as people emerge from deep inside the ship.

Men, lots of them, different sizes and shapes but indistinguishable in the darkness of the early morning. Her eyes are fixed on them, watching as they clear rubble out of the way and scan the area for any threats. All of them are armed, but there are no guns anywhere on their bodies – she sees knives, daggers, swords, and cutlasses. Nothing modern, nothing from this world.

It takes her a moment to realize her hands are shaking on her gun.

At last, the little beach seems to satisfy the crew of the ship. One of them runs back into the ship and when he returns, there's another man with him. This one is taller than most of the others, dark-haired and dressed in black clothes the likes of which she's never seen before, a sword at his hip and –

"No way," Emma breathes, the words slipping out in an involuntary breath. His hand is a _hook_, and she may not have had a real family growing up, but she's still read the stories. This man is dressed like a pirate captain from another time, another place – another _world_. There might not be fairy godmothers, but this is _Captain Hook_.

His eyes, too far away to spot the color, flick over to her hiding place. She ducks her head, mentally cursing herself for letting any sound out. But he's too far away to have possibly heard her, and his gaze wanders back to his men after a second.

Emma sinks down into the seat, her breaths suddenly heavy. Everything about this night is utterly impossible, but nothing about it feels like a dream. She looks down at her gun, solidly and deadly in her hands. Her life has never been a fairytale, and tonight, she tells herself with her eyes pressed shut, will be no different. She's imagining things, she _must be_.

The car door breaks open with a loud _snap_ that echoes in the night. She jumps, gun trained on the intruder. The captain smiles down at her.

"Are you Emma Swan?" he asks her, voice thick with an accent she can't place on so few hours of sleep – vaguely European but definitely nothing she's ever heard before. "My name is Killian Jones."

She fires.

-:-

**ii. enchanted forest  
**_(in which the evil queen is long dead and when he attacks the kingdom of queen snow white and king charming, captain hook finds himself thrown into their dungeon with the most unexpected of company)_

He hears her footsteps long before he sees her – she is quiet, but not quiet enough to fool the deadliest pirate of the seas beyond the Enchanted Forest. She is a princess of only twenty-four and he is a pirate with several hundred years to his name, so the only thing about her sneaking into her parent's dungeons to see him that impresses him is the fact that she _is_, and she shouldn't be.

"Princess Emma," he greets with a drawl to his voice and a smirk on his face after he's certain she has no plans of coming out from her hiding place in the shadows to actually speak to him. "Are you here to visit me? I'm _honored_. What would your parents say?"

"My parents don't know I'm here." Her voice is low in the darkness of dungeons, filled with a smoky sort of spirit that is far different from her mother's queenly grace or her father's stubborn charm. "How did you?"

Hook leans against the walls of his cell, the picture of careless arrogance, and readies his most dazzling grin as she steps into view. "I can hear you, love. Pirate's ears. I can find any stowaway on any ship and any princess in any castle." A bit of an exaggeration, but not by much – and all she's sure to have heard of him are stories of his dastardliness, he's certain. What would a princess in the heart of the Enchanted Forest truly know about Killian Jones?

She's wearing a hooded cloak that hides her fair features, but he'd gotten enough of a glimpse of her at the ball he'd crashed earlier. Blonde curls escape from the black velvet, but he can't see her eyes as she walks closer. It's a shame – he remembers her eyes being the most captivating part of her face, all hazelly-grey and clouded with thoughts he hadn't quite surmised from one look.

"Why did you attack us?" she states, her voice soft but sure when it rings in the silence of the dungeon. He spares a moment to wonder how she got around the guards, as they seem to have conveniently disappeared. "Why did you attack us _tonight_?"

He hesitates, absently running his fingers over his hook. "Well, my dear, those are two very different questions with very different answers. And I'm afraid truth is never free. If you want to learn it – "

"Shut up," she orders, and he falls abruptly silent, surprised at himself for obeying her. "I didn't come here for riddles and mind games. We get enough of those from Rumplestiltskin."

She's about to continue, but he must have twitched at the sound of his nemesis' name, and she must have noticed, because she goes quiet, staring at him for a moment that stretches too long to be comfortable. "What was that?" she asks, her words slow, steady, and controlled. "Do you have a problem with Rumplestiltskin?"

Hook scoffs, turns away. There is no reason for her to see the emotion in his eyes. "Doesn't everyone, Princess?"

Emma makes a noise that sounds like dawning realization. "_Oh_," and damn it if she isn't smarter than the king and queen and all their guards. "You're here for Rumplestiltskin."

"I'm here for the party favors, actually," he mutters, and she laughs, which startles him into looking up. She has a pretty laugh, bubbling and bright and clear like a gift. Her hood has fallen down by now, revealing a mass of blonde curls that frame a conventionally pretty face and unconventionally beautiful eyes. He'd been half-right about the eyes – her smile is suddenly the most captivating part of her face.

"Why do you hate Rumplestiltskin?" she asks him point-black, her gaze heavy on his soul as she watches him sink down to the ground of his cell, hook in hand and memories flashing beneath his eyes. "Did he make you a bad deal or – or, I don't know. What else could he have done?"

Hook laughs, hollow and bitterless. "Rumplestiltskin wasn't always the wise old imp with the all the answers that you know today, sweetheart. You would do well to not forget that he _is_ the Dark One – the most evil practicioner of magic in all the land. And your parents should already know he doesn't always use his powers for good. Isn't that why they keep him locked up to use as their personal soothsayer?"

She kneels down to the ground, just outside his bars, joining him on the floor. He's more surprised than he maybe should be, but – princesses aren't supposed to get their hands dirty for pirates. "But what did he do to _you_?" she asks insistently, and he flashes her a wry smile.

"Why so interested, Princess? Why would you care about the motivations of an evil ruthless pirate?"

She's silent for a long time before she speaks again. "I don't think you're evil. If you were evil, you would have killed me back there. You had the chance. But you didn't."

"I don't believe in killing women just because I can, just because they're in my way," he tells her, more truth in his words than she will ever know. "Rumplestiltskin did. And I am not him."

Emma looks at him for so long that he feels like he's being judged for something and perhaps not found entirely wanting. Then she scoots back until she's against the wall, mirroring his pose on the inside of the cell, and says to him, "Tell me what happened."

It's an order, given by a princess who knows she will rule a kingdom one day. Killian Jones has hated royalty for a long time, and he opens his mouth to tell her to go away, and the story of Milah spills out instead.

-:-

**iii. neverland  
**_(in which princess emma of the enchanted forest makes a deal with rumplestiltskin to go rescue his son from peter pan in neverland in return for a cure for her father's injury and runs into a pirate)_

"What are you doing in Neverland, Princess?" he demands, his voice rough but his hands gentle as he helps her climb up onto his ship from the waters she had fallen into on her way through the hat portal. One of his men brings her a towel to wrap around her soaked and shivering body. "You're far too old to be a lost girl, and there is only one of those, anyway."

Emma shakes her head, looking up at him through determined eyes. "I'm here to rescue a lost boy, actually," she tells him proudly. "What are _you_ doing here? You're far too old to be a lost boy, yourself," she adds, adding a drawl to her voice to mimick his own.

He raises an eyebrow, looking more amused than annoyed. "I'm not a lost boy," he laughs. "I'm Captain Hook! Surely they have tales of me in your land, Princess? I was quite well known over there a couple hundred years ago. I believe I served under one of your ancestors for a while, in fact."

"As a _pirate_?" she asks disbelievingly. "Why would a king hire a pirate?"

"Oh, I wasn't always a pirate," he tells her, but his voice is low in a way that tells her this is dangerous territory she's heading into. "But that's enough about me. Which lost boy are you here for? And why would you ever agree to go on a suicide mission to _rescue_ one of them?"

Emma tilts her head consideringly, deciding whether or not it's worth it to press him for more of his story. In the end, it's not what she came here to do – all she needs to do is get his help, so she drops it. "I made a deal with a man whose son was taken by Pan," she says, remembering Rumplestiltskin's warning not to mention his name to anyone she might meet in this world. "His name is Baelfire."

Hook's eyes cloud over. "Rumplestiltskin's son," he says with such hatred in his voice that she's almost worried for her safety. But he makes no move to harm her, even though she is an easy target, standing cold and wet and defenseless in the middle of his ship. "I see. Well, good luck with that. Try not to die."

He turns away, apparently finished with the conversation, but Emma isn't. "Wait!" she cries, making him stop in his tracks. "Can't you help me? You obviously know Baelfire. You know the island. You can't be working for Pan, so – "

Hook looks at her over his shoulder, a chuckle on his lips. "You don't know who I'm working for, Princess. I was the one who gave Baelfire over to Peter Pan. I'm not going to hurt you, but leave my ship when the sun comes up and find your own way. I offer no help to anyone who's with Rumplestiltskin."

She watches him leave, feeling more defeated with every _thump_ of his boots on the wood of the ship. He had listened to her cries for help when she crashed into the water, he had pulled her up and offered her shelter, he hadn't killed her when she could. And yet all of his mercies seem small compared to his refusal to help, to his revelation that he had handed an innocent boy over to Peter Pan.

There is nothing about this pirate she should trust, but she had wanted to, if only for a moment when he'd helped her out of the sea and told her to breathe. But princesses can't cry over pirates, so she composes herself and walks like a queen, like her mother taught her, to the quarters one of his men points out to her.

She is _Emma_, daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, and she can rescue a lost boy without the help of a pirate. She'll prove she doesn't need Captain Hook, no matter how lost or afraid or helpless she gets, and she will succeed.

Inside his quarters, Captain Hook closes his eyes against the sight of a picture of Milah and wills himself not to try to help this girl looking for his love's son. He will not rescue Baelfire for Rumplestiltskin. He _won't_.

(He does.)

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**a/n:** if you read this far, please drop me a review to let me know what you think, please and thank you!

and **DON'T** favorite without reviewing, please and thanks.


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